THE KEREKS

Self-designation. The people call themselves kerek, but the etymology of
the word is unknown. In the 1930s the Kereks were regarded as a Koryak
dialectal group and their official designation was Nymylan as with the
Koryaks. The Kereks were classified as separate people only in the 1960s.

Habitat. The Kereks make up a small linguistic enclave near the Gulf of
Ugolnaya and Navarin Cape on the coast of the Bering Sea in northeastern
Siberia. The administrative unit to which they belong is called the Bering
District of the Chukchi Autonomous Territory which is part of the Magadan
Region of the Russian Federation. Their habitat is the Artic region with
its permafrost tundra and harsh climate.

Population. There is no official data on the number of Kereks. In 1934
they numbered 90 (S. Stebnitsky). Since then "about a hundred" has been
repeatedly quoted (for example, Soviet Estonian Encyclopedia, 1968, 1979),
but no more exact data exists. "Not more than 70" is the estimate given
by V. Avorin in 1966.

Anthropologically the Kereks, like the Koryaks and the Chukchi, belong
to the Mongoloid North-Asian race. They are short and stout. Their skin
is dark, their eyes and hair dark and their face broad with high cheekbones.
They have a deep Mongolian eyefold.

The Kerek language belongs to the Chukchi-Kamchatka group of Paleo-Asiatic
or Paleo-Siberian languages. The closest related languages are Chukchi,
Koryak, Aliutor and Itelmen. Morphologically, the closest is Koryak, though
as regards vocabulary the Chukchi displays most similarities. The structure
of Kerek is incorporative or polysynthetic.

Two dialects are distinguishable: Khatyrka and Maino-Pylgen. The latter
is spoken by the majority of the Kerek people. The dialectal differences
and the dialects themselves have not been studied separately.

The Kerek and the Koryak languages diverged after the Koryak and the Chukchi
had separated. The Chukchi influence is strong. It is most likely that
colonization by the Chukchi has prevented the Kereks and the Koryaks forming
an enclave. All Kereks are able to use spoken and written forms of the
Chukchi language.

The Kerek vocabulary where it concerns the environment and related activities
(fishing, sea animal hunting) is quite rich. Chukchi has been a source
of loan-words, many deeply ingrained but also many absorbed from Russian
via Chukchi during the Soviet period. When Russian came to be spoken more
widely, the words were directly borrowed from Russian. This was inevitably
followed by full-scale usage of Russian. The Kereks face the danger of
losing their identity and becoming either Chukchi or Russian.

History. The Kereks have long been regarded as a Koryak tribe among the
Chukchi but they differed from the pastoral nomads because they led a settled
life and their main occupations were fishing and hunting sea animals. By
the end of the 18th century Chukotka and Kamchatka were under Russian control
and any native resistance had been subdued. The Kereks, however, never
adopted the Russian Orthodox faith. In the 19th century Russian merchants
expanded their activities into Chukotka. After selling Alaska (1867) Russia
hastened to strengthen its positions in northeastern Siberia. Economically,
Russia did not gain control over these areas until Soviet rule had been
established and competitors from the U.S.A., Japan, Norway, and elsewhere
were shut out behind closed borders.

With the introduction of Soviet rule (1923) big changes took place. In
1930, the Chukchi national territory was formed and collectivization began.
The collectivization of the Kereks was relatively easy because they were
already a settled people. The change over to Soviet ways was more than
painful. The Soviets introduced new houses, new technology and means of
transport, health care and literacy, but they also introduced ideological
brainwashing and repression. Militant atheism was strongly opposed to the
animistic beliefs and the shamans who where the true leaders of the Kerek
people. The Soviet all-Union industries exploited natural resources. The
life of the Kereks was regulated by Soviet norms, rules and regulations
and these crushed the local people, their natural habitat and their national
interests. The local and the ethnic (be it building, dress or language)
became synonymous with the primitive and the provincial.

The fate of the Kereks is a pitiful example of what happens when a minor
ethnic group is forced to leap into Communism under the duress of their
colonizers. The Russian-language mass culture poses a threat to the Kerek
language and cultural identity, and its military-industrial colonial policies
are hazardous to the life and health of all (see, the Chukchis).

Writing. There is no written language. In 1932 the Chukchi written language
was created and the Kereks, who formed a linguistic enclave within the
Chukchi habitat, began to use it too. Since the 1960s Kerek has been regarded
as a separate language, but there have been no changes. The language for
communication is Chukchi or Russian, and the language for education and
cultural life is Russian. There no longer exist enough people to maintain
a written language.

Research has begun recently into the Kereks. Some linguistic and ethnographic
material was collected earlier by V. Bogoraz who presented a comparative
analysis in his monograph on the Chukchi (in English 1922, in Russian 1934).
The first linguistic treatment of the Kereks was published in 1968. This
was written by P. Skorik, who used the material collected from Chukotka
between 1954 and 1956. The Kereks and their language have not been sufficiently
studied. No samples of texts, or dictionaries have been published, and
the dialects, grammar and vocabulary have not been treated separately.